In Pakistan, no taxation without investigation

In Pakistan, reporting on the
military intelligence services or insurgent groups or machinations within
political parties is the normal grist for the media mill. A lot of the coverage
relies on reporters with inside sources. The sources use the media as a
battleground for their infighting, relying on sympathetic reporters to put
forward their positions. It keeps the wildly popular TV talk show hosts
occupied and tends to fill the inside pages of newspapers, if not always the
front pages. It's not a problem unique to Pakistan, but the country's media have
taken it to a very high level.

What you do not see in Pakistan
is a lot of hard-core investigative reporting, based on detailed analysis of
public and private data. I raised this issue in a blog on Ayesha Haroon, a highly regarded editor who died in February 2013.
"She was frank in her assessment
of Pakistani journalism and the propensity for senior journalists to rely on
favored sources to deliver analysis rather than dig for facts. It was an uphill
battle, she said, to get younger reporters to go to sources for hard facts, rather
than resort to their speed dials to plug in quick quotes," I wrote.

One
of Haroon's proteges is Umar Cheema, who made the transition from mostly political
and security reporting for The News to
genuine investigative reporting. The change came after his abduction and sadistic attack in 2010 by what he says were
members of Pakistan's intelligence community. The attack prompted Cheema, a
winner of CPJ's 2011 International Press Freedom Awards, to reflect on his
role as a journalist. Eventually, he launched the Center for Investigative Reporting in
Pakistan (CIRP), which has focused on detailed analyses
of tax records and who, among the rich, famous, and politically well-connected,
has not been paying their taxes. It turns out that's just about every one of these
people.

CIRP's work was so effective that the government just
released its list of people and organizations which actually exist on
Pakistan's official tax list and how much they have paid. With The Citizens Tax Directory now online,
Pakistan becomes only the fourth country in the world to do this, Cheema told
me in an email. The directory contains records of all those registered with tax
authorities, companies and individuals, no matter if they have paid taxes or
not.

This is more than a shaming exercise as some news reports have claimed. The International
Monetary Fund's (IMF) most recent loan to Pakistan came to about $6.7 billion,
and the country survives on its cash inflows to fill the huge gaps left by the unpaid
taxes of most of its citizens and corporations. The IMF says an improvement in
that record is part of its loan conditions being fulfilled. A more comprehensive
look can be found in Sheila Coronel's explainer on the Global Investigative
Journalism website, Reporting that Makes an Impact? Some Answers from Pakistan. (Full disclosure: Coronel, who is academic dean at Columbia
University's journalism school, is a member of CPJ's board of directors.) Also,
the Washington-based Tax Notes International did a 3500-word report on CIRP's series.

While I was in Islamabad on a
very rainy day in March this year, Cheema took me to lunch. He told me of his
zeal for what he is doing. He calls himself a "social change entrepreneur," a
role in which he says feels increasingly comfortable. He was frank in describing
the risks his work involves in taking on the country's ruling class. Like many
other Pakistani journalists, the threat level he lives with is significant. And
he told me he is trying to find long-term funding for CIRP that will not compromise its institutional
integrity. I had only a few ideas, which he is weighing. CIRP is important
because of its investigations into tax evasion in Pakistan. But it is even more
important because it shows what a well-intentioned, determined, and diligent
reporter can accomplish, largely on his own, by practicing basic journalism.

Bob Dietz, coordinator of CPJ’s Asia Program, has reported across the continent for news outlets such as CNN and Asiaweek. He has led numerous CPJ missions, including ones to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Follow him on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.